Carola Cooper has been axed from Paula Lewin's Olympic campaign ? and by e-mail.

The regular crew member of Lewin's Yngling programme confirmed to yesterday that she will no longer be involved in the quest for an Olympic medal next August in Athens, Greece.

She said this news was conveyed to her via a recent e-mail from Lewin, the Island's leading female skipper. Cooper added there has been no dialogue between herself and Lewin and declined further comment on the matter except to say she will be continuing in her job as sailing director of the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club.

Initially, she had planned to go on leave from next month to devote herself to training full-time.

This development is the latest in a series of events which came to public light last month with Lewin announcing she was rethinking Cooper's role in the venture and considering other options.

The skipper revealed the choice of a third person to join her and twin sister Peta Lewin in the Olympics would hinge on a training stint which took place earlier this month at the US Sailing Center in Miami, Florida. During that exercise, she explained, an alternative crew member would be tested while Cooper remained here in Bermuda.

Christine Patton is widely tipped to be Cooper's replacement but neither she nor Lewin were available to address this issue.

Patton's husband, Tim ? who is President of the Bermuda Sailing Association ? refused comment when reached at home, saying it should be referred to Lewin.

This outcome is certainly a far cry from July 28 last year when the Lewin sisters and Cooper were happily celebrating as the first Bermudians to qualify for the 2004 Summer Games. They earned an Olympic berth by finishing fourth in the Yngling Championships in Brunnen, Switzerland, where the top five teams qualified for the Olympiad.

Back then, Lewin deemed it "a big deal" to qualify two years in advance for several reasons.

First, there are only 15 Olympic spots available in their class; secondly, the trio had only started sailing together in May 2002 ? which made their achievement two months later all the more impressive ? and, thirdly, that they could now focus "and put everything into winning a medal".

"We tried a number of people as crew but it didn't work out and it was only in late May that Carola joined us. Other teams couldn't believe it," Lewin had said of that success.

However, by last month, her views regarding her team-mate had obviously changed.

"I think what Carola brings to the team overlaps a lot of my strengths and so we are looking to diversify the talent.

"We are trying to improve the overall performance of the whole team," she said in an interview.

As she waited in limbo to learn her fate, Cooper had admitted she would be very disappointed not to participate in the Olympics after working so hard.